Raindrops keep falling on my head...
I love rainy days. But only under certain conditions. My favorite rainy days are the ones when I am at home. I love to wake up and realize that it’s dark outside because it’s raining. I love to stay in my pajamas and curl up on the couch with a cozy blanket and a good book or if I'm feeling unintellectual, a good movie. Everything inside the house just seems so much cozier when it’s raining.
I hate when people can’t drive when it’s raining. I always feel bad for Jeremy when it rains, because he usually ends up with three times as much work to do because of stupid people who can’t drive! (Haven’t we vented about stupid drivers several times since the beginning of BWP? Perhaps we all have road rage! Perhaps being a writer and road rage go hand in hand…) There’s this ongoing joke that you will never see a wet GSP because they don’t work in the rain…(good to know…if you’re ever in a hurry when it’s raining you probably won’t get a ticket!)
I remember one rainy Sunday right after Jeremy and I started dating. He had to be at work around 8:00. I was getting ready for church, and I called him as I pulled into the church parking lot to see if he was going to make it. Sometimes when he has to work on Sundays, he’ll stop and use his lunch hour for church and then just grab fast food afterward. When I got to church (5 minutes late, duh! I can never make it to church on time even though my church is all of about 3 miles from my house!) When I noticed he wasn’t there I figured he had gotten busy and I called him to see if he was going to make it or not so I wouldn’t sit through the church service and not listen because I was wondering if Jeremy was ok or not. Well…I ended up doing that anyways. He never answered his phone. Normally that wouldn’t bother me since we had just started dating, but then during church I started to think about a million things. I think it was the first time that the danger of his job really hit me. Tons of situations ran through my mind and I got a bad case of the “What Ifs.” I remember distinctly saying a prayer to myself as the preacher was preaching that Jeremy would be safe. Once church was over, I went out to check my phone and I had a voice mail…it’s weird that I spent the church service thinking about Jeremy’s dangerous job, because the voicemail was him telling me that he had been in an accident. He was alright. Some idiot that couldn’t drive (here I go with the road rage again) was speeding down the interstate. A trooper in Tifton was trying to pull him over for a routine stop and the guy wouldn’t pull over. It ended up being a huge chase and eventually Jeremy had to pit him (which is just hitting the back end of his car to make him run off the road). Usually pitting somebody isn’t necessarily a huge deal, but since it was raining it ended up worse than normal. Jeremy spun out into the water-filled ditch and his car ended up flooded with water. The guy that he was chasing actually hit a tree or something. I watched it all on video when Jeremy got off of work that night. I really realized from this point on that I needed to be sure to let him know how much I appreciated what he did. The guy he was chasing was a 16 year old. The reason he didn’t stop when he was getting pulled over…he was scared and didn’t know what to do. He actually didn’t have any drugs or anything in his car. He was just stupid and was going 95 down the interstate and was “too scared” to stop. When Jeremy got home, he was soaking wet from dealing with the accident. His shoes were pouring water because of having to walk around in the ditch full of water. I laid on the couch that afternoon (Sunday naps are the best….they are exceptionally awesome when it’s raining!) and I couldn’t fall asleep. I can always fall asleep on Sunday. But on this particular day, I just pondered all of the brave men and women in security positions and how brave and selfless they are to do what they do!
On a lighter note, my favorite type of rain is the type that used to happen all the time when I was a kid. There is nothing like an afternoon South Georgia thunderstorm in the summertime. You could just about set your clock by the afternoon thunderstorms back then. The past few summers, due to drought, we haven't had these storms as frequently. Back when I was younger there was something soothing about the fact that no matter what you were doing in the afternoon between 2 and 3, you didn't get too tied up in something that you couldn't quit when the thunderstorm came. The rain would fall hard for about 15 or 20 minutes with serious thunder and lightning, and then after that would be a slow steady shower for at least the next hour. The thunder and lightning were only before the storm and about the first 15 minutes of the storm. After the rain, you could get back to what you were doing. At granny's house, afternoon thundershowers always mean snack time. There was no better time than this for a grape float! How I miss the days of no responsibility, afternoon thunderstorms, and grape floats...
I hate when people can’t drive when it’s raining. I always feel bad for Jeremy when it rains, because he usually ends up with three times as much work to do because of stupid people who can’t drive! (Haven’t we vented about stupid drivers several times since the beginning of BWP? Perhaps we all have road rage! Perhaps being a writer and road rage go hand in hand…) There’s this ongoing joke that you will never see a wet GSP because they don’t work in the rain…(good to know…if you’re ever in a hurry when it’s raining you probably won’t get a ticket!)
I remember one rainy Sunday right after Jeremy and I started dating. He had to be at work around 8:00. I was getting ready for church, and I called him as I pulled into the church parking lot to see if he was going to make it. Sometimes when he has to work on Sundays, he’ll stop and use his lunch hour for church and then just grab fast food afterward. When I got to church (5 minutes late, duh! I can never make it to church on time even though my church is all of about 3 miles from my house!) When I noticed he wasn’t there I figured he had gotten busy and I called him to see if he was going to make it or not so I wouldn’t sit through the church service and not listen because I was wondering if Jeremy was ok or not. Well…I ended up doing that anyways. He never answered his phone. Normally that wouldn’t bother me since we had just started dating, but then during church I started to think about a million things. I think it was the first time that the danger of his job really hit me. Tons of situations ran through my mind and I got a bad case of the “What Ifs.” I remember distinctly saying a prayer to myself as the preacher was preaching that Jeremy would be safe. Once church was over, I went out to check my phone and I had a voice mail…it’s weird that I spent the church service thinking about Jeremy’s dangerous job, because the voicemail was him telling me that he had been in an accident. He was alright. Some idiot that couldn’t drive (here I go with the road rage again) was speeding down the interstate. A trooper in Tifton was trying to pull him over for a routine stop and the guy wouldn’t pull over. It ended up being a huge chase and eventually Jeremy had to pit him (which is just hitting the back end of his car to make him run off the road). Usually pitting somebody isn’t necessarily a huge deal, but since it was raining it ended up worse than normal. Jeremy spun out into the water-filled ditch and his car ended up flooded with water. The guy that he was chasing actually hit a tree or something. I watched it all on video when Jeremy got off of work that night. I really realized from this point on that I needed to be sure to let him know how much I appreciated what he did. The guy he was chasing was a 16 year old. The reason he didn’t stop when he was getting pulled over…he was scared and didn’t know what to do. He actually didn’t have any drugs or anything in his car. He was just stupid and was going 95 down the interstate and was “too scared” to stop. When Jeremy got home, he was soaking wet from dealing with the accident. His shoes were pouring water because of having to walk around in the ditch full of water. I laid on the couch that afternoon (Sunday naps are the best….they are exceptionally awesome when it’s raining!) and I couldn’t fall asleep. I can always fall asleep on Sunday. But on this particular day, I just pondered all of the brave men and women in security positions and how brave and selfless they are to do what they do!
On a lighter note, my favorite type of rain is the type that used to happen all the time when I was a kid. There is nothing like an afternoon South Georgia thunderstorm in the summertime. You could just about set your clock by the afternoon thunderstorms back then. The past few summers, due to drought, we haven't had these storms as frequently. Back when I was younger there was something soothing about the fact that no matter what you were doing in the afternoon between 2 and 3, you didn't get too tied up in something that you couldn't quit when the thunderstorm came. The rain would fall hard for about 15 or 20 minutes with serious thunder and lightning, and then after that would be a slow steady shower for at least the next hour. The thunder and lightning were only before the storm and about the first 15 minutes of the storm. After the rain, you could get back to what you were doing. At granny's house, afternoon thundershowers always mean snack time. There was no better time than this for a grape float! How I miss the days of no responsibility, afternoon thunderstorms, and grape floats...
posted by Jennifer Swain at
8:55 AM
2 Comments:
Your comment about troopers and the rain is so funny. My husband used to joke about how everyone was always at the post when it is raining. They would all get so mad when an accident came in and they had to go work it during the rain. I'm glad we have some brave men in our lives who could endure things I could never do.
By
Mary Poppins, at 9:10 AM
Jennifer, you have another potential story or poem with the account of you sitting in church worrying about Jeremy.
By
Donna Sewell, at 9:04 AM
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